ALTICAST FLEXES ANDROID TV, HOSPITALITY MUSCLES AT IBC

Android TV and next-generation hospitality solutions that can open the doors to new service and revenue opportunities for pay-TV operators will highlight the Alticast exhibit at IBC 2016 September 9-13.

At Stand 1.F39 at the RAI Amsterdam, Alticast will premiere an Android TV system for pay-TV, including IPTV.  This demo highlights ambient UX technology that contextually improves the user experience, as well as an Intelligent Personal Assistant that can execute individual tasks or services.  Alticast also will be showing a hospitality solution that embeds guest automation services leveraging IoT systems, as part of its suite of enterprise IoT and media solutions.

In addition, Alticast will demonstrate products and services that are driving success for pay-TV operators today, including:

·       Alticast’s new hospitality UX , which demonstrates how a hotel guest can use voice commands to find salient info about their location including weather, nearby restaurant reservations, and VOD recommendations. This experience exemplifies a sophisticated, future-driven Alticast IoT framework.

·       A full entertainment experience with Android TV functionality, merging an operator based UX with the opportunity to access approved Android applications, as well as a new, unique ambient personalization experience.

·       Integrated media solutions that span cloud, devices and customers –allowing

pay-TV providers quickly to launch innovative complete solutions including dynamic UX and TV Everywhere over multiple devices with Cloud DVR.

                          

·      Cloud UI solutions that enable operators such as Korea’s KT to provide a next-generation user experience for existing and new devices. The Alticast solution also provides the ability to have personalized UIs for watching sports, kids shows and entertainment.

Media and industry analysts interested in meeting with Alticast executives at IBC 2016 should contact pspr@att.net to schedule a date and time.

Finding a cure for ‘App Fatigue’

Is your ability to find desired content drowning in a sea of apps?  Are you weary of searching through multiple sources to find programming of interest?  In this piece at Light Reading, Alticast technical product manager Susan Crouse discusses how the explosion in apps is causing “app fatigue” among consumers, and suggests that pay-TV’s unique position as the primary service provider can enable it to offer the streamlined experiences viewers are seeking. 

ALTICAST APPROVED FOR “CERTIFIED WIDEVINE IMPLEMENTATION PARTNER PROGRAM”

Alticast today announced that it has become a member of the “Certified Widevine Implementation Partner Program,” a designation that is intended to expand content security options for pay-TV operators worldwide.

As a modular DRM partner, Alticast’s AltiProtect Multi-DRM product can support Widevine DRM as one of several security solutions within a single infrastructure. AltiProtect enables a single point of control and transparent customer experience for delivery of content streams from multiple sources – and using multiple security mechanisms – within multi-service, multi-device environments. 

Widevine DRM is available on a broad range of platforms and is currently deployed on more than two billion devices.  The Widevine solution combines Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH), Common Encryption (CENC) and Encrypted Media Extensions (ENE) to provide robust multiplatform content protection.

Studio-approved and highly rated by Telcordia, AltiProtect uses well-defined industry standards to ensure reliable content protection for broadcast and VOD, and can easily adapt to unique network infrastructures.  AltiProtect is being used by CJ Hellovision, the largest pay-TV operator in South Korea, to secure the world’s first launch of UHD pay-TV service.

“AltiProtect is a dynamic CAS/DRM solution that already secures content on millions of deployed devices,” said Dr. Misung Cho, security technology lead for Alticast. “With Widevine we can expand the available content catalogs for partnering in a heterogeneous content delivery environment.”

Alticast will demonstrate a variety of products and solutions for pay-TV operators at its stand (1F.36) at IBC 2016 September 9-13 in Amsterdam.

IPTV Avoiding the Obstacles Ahead...

Multiple Pay TV operators are starting to provide video through IPTV infrastructures, and Alticast has published a couple of white papers that discuss the many considerations that need to be made as infrastructures are built out for a full transition to IPTV.

Early entrants like Sling TV can provide good insight to the challenges ahead as pointed out by Fierce Cable's Daniel Frankel in an interview with CEO Roger Lynch:

Lynch restated that the challenge for a live-streaming service like Sling TV is to overcome endemic technical problems associated with using the internet.

"If you were going to architect a network to deliver video, you wouldn't architect the internet the way it was architected," he said. "It wasn't architected for synchronous video delivery. And so a lot of effort goes into designing systems to counteract the way the internet was designed with its random discard of packets and things like that that happen in routers."

Read the rest of the interview to learn how Sling is now in 'Whack-a-Mole' mode to knock out the final issues.

ALTICAST GEARS UP FOR NEW MARKET OPPORTUNITIES; NAMES MIKE FALLON PRESIDENT OF ALTICAST AMERICAS

Alticast today announced the appointment of Mike Fallon as president of Alticast Americas as the company positions itself to capitalize on an increased number of technological and geographic growth opportunities in the global pay-TV industry.

Fallon, who previously headed Alticast’s North American customer engagement activities, will assume overall responsibility for Alticast’s business strategy and operational activities in the North and South American markets. John Carlucci, who had served as president and CTO of Alticast US, will devote all of his energies to his CTO role of identifying and productizing new technologies that can drive business results for pay-TV operators.

“Our success with Videotron, our APAC customers and other operators in North America and worldwide have generated numerous new business and technology opportunities,” said Mansoo Han, CEO of Alticast.  “The appointment of Mike Fallon will better enable us to leverage his strategic and leadership skills, while freeing John Carlucci to accelerate the technology solutions that the market is demanding.”

As head of Alticast’s North American professional services efforts, Fallon has helped to drive three consecutive years of increasing revenue growth.  During that time he has worked directly with Tier 1 North American pay-TV operators to determine their business objectives, and has built and leveraged an Alticast team that has expedited the creation of solutions that are meeting customers’ needs.

"Alticast’s best-in-class UX, our device software solutions and our next-generation cloud services platform already are positioned to drive value for our Americas customer base,” said Fallon. "We expect to build on that success as we bring the same CAS and DRM content protection technology that is widely deployed in APAC to the Americas market.” 

Prior to Alticast, Fallon spent eight years with Advanced Digital Broadcast and its Vidiom Systems acquisition.  As director of customer operations he led cross-functional teams that delivered an integrated software/hardware solution that was deployed nationally by Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable. Earlier in his career, Fallon spent three years with ARRIS.  He holds a B.A. from the University of Dallas.